.sagepub.com Parental Involvement and the Procedural Safeguards

Research in the fields of early intervention and primary and secondary education has consistently demonstrated that parental involvement in education and child development is an important predictor of cognitive and social-emotional development and academic achievement (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 2000; Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Reynolds, 1991). For children and youth with disabilities, parental involvement has been shown to be an important protective factor against adverse educational, social, and employment outcomes in young adulthood (Wagner, Blackorby, Cameto, & Newman, 1993). However, evidence from national longi-tudinal studies of students with disabilities suggests that parents of children with disabilities who are most vulnerable to poor educational, social, and employment outcomes—those from disadvantaged backgrounds—may also be those most likely to experience difficulty bein